So what kept training managers awake during 2012? What challenges
they have been facing? During last year I was fortunate enough to be in touch
with training managers of various companies in India. While not statistically conclusive,
here are some general trends I noticed from my various conversations.
- Cost:
Almost all training managers are pressurized to show some cost savings. Mostly
this is resulting in passing on pressure to reduce costs on their training
vendors. Cost seems to be their single biggest challenge these days.
- Uncertain Business Environment: There’s a constant challenge in planning the training for the
year. The business environment has a great deal of uncertainty. The hiring is unpredictable
making it harder to plan even the induction batches. There pressure of get
trained resources on projects, putting pressure on training managers to schedule
training with practically no notice.
- Training
Effectiveness: Many training managers spoke about showing training
effectiveness. This seems to be the biggest “ask” from training partners. How
can they show effectiveness of training to their senior management?
What I didn't find in my conversations with them:
- Elearning,
Blended Learning: Perhaps I was talking to “Training Managers”, perhaps
most companies I spoke with were large and already have elearning libraries, I
am not sure why but I didn’t find elearning as a strategic initiative while
speaking with training managers. Most want it, or have it, but it was not clear
to me how it was being used as a key initiative to drive down costs in the
overall learning strategy. In most cases there was no linkage between elearning
available and the training plans and goals in the company, or how to blend it
with classroom training.
- Social
Learning: Still too early for this. It didn’t get a mention even as a buzz
word in our conversations. I am fortunate to be working on a project for a government
department involving social learning where we are experimenting with using
Facebook for social learning. Unfortunately this is not something I found being
used in corporate customers, inspite of the LMSs and Corporate Virtual
Universities.
- Mobile
Learning: It’s still at the stage of “management fad”. Most training
managers don’t really care about this much, though still want to see some “proof
of concept”. My guess is “mobile learning” and “social learning” are likely to
take off together whenever they do.
I had an interesting chat conversation over the weekend with a budding instructional designer.
ID: I wanted to discuss about Instructional approaches
ID: Suppose there's a client who says " they have been using ILT that has not been successful, their mentors are not motivating enough& nw wants to change it to a WBT.......and target audience are senior &middle level managers well versed with sales, dealing with retailers etc.....
And I've to give them 2 approaches.....do u hv any ideas?
Me: why is their ILT not successful?
ID: their mentors are not motivating enough
Me: why do you believe wbt will be motivating?
ID: hmm.....It would give them the space of doing the training at their own pace and on their own
after all they are senior managers..who might not like to be trained
I mean not support trainings
Me: basically your instructional strategies need to remove the problems they are having with ILT
so if the mentors/trainers are boring, the WBT has to far far more interesting and interactive
ID: Yep.....
Me: so you have the answer...
unless i understood the question wrong
ID: and with just this information and the fact that I’ve to develop 2 approached based on level 2 interactivity.....
I needed some ideas
See.......ok, can you list down types of approaches......
one can be scenario based, case study based.....
dialogue based
Me: you should know more about the users, job profile is one, what about their other characteristics -- gender, age, race etc.
Me: also what kind of industry are they in?
ID: they are in sales industry
all senior and middle level managers
pharmaceuticals
Me: basically sales guys travel a lot, they don't like to attend training
do they have PDAs etc.?
which country are we talking about?
ID: India
Me: what access do they have to computers and Internet?
ID: broadband
Me: from home?
ID: yes
everywhere
Me: so the company is expecting the sales guys to take training from home?
ID: anytime they are free.......
Me: they are never going to be free
ID: they are senior level and middle level managers!
Me: are you expected to solve the business problem or just create a WBT?
my response will be different in each case
ID: just create a WBT
Me: :-)
Now I know this person is a budding, relatively junior instructional designer and probably is just doing what she has been asked to do. There was a sense of déjà vu for me. I know many a times, the client appears to be very clear about what they want and wants the vendor to “just create a WBT”. Not all clients want to have a business problem discussion with the vendor. And not all instructional designers want to solve business problems. They are happy with creating a WBT and getting on with their jobs. Unfortunately that’s a lose-lose situation for both clients and instructional designers.
My advice to instructional designers is to stay focussed on solving the business problems. Sometimes creating a WBT might not be the solution, even though that’s what your company may have been contracted to do. Focusing on solving the business problem will help you add value in your interaction with the client and that will in almost all cases eventually lead to more business.
And if you are a client outsourcing a learning content creation project, my suggestion would be that you work with the vendor and collaborate on solving the business problem. There is no harm in having raking up more brains to solve your business problem. And if you are sure that WBT is indeed the answer to your business problem, then provide that information to the vendor so they can do justice to your project.
Clive Shepherd redefines his own
definition of blended learning in his recent post.
A blended learning solution mixes social contexts for learning (self-study, one-to-one, small group, larger community) with the aim of increasing learning effectiveness, and/or mixes learning media (face-to-face, online, print, etc.) to increase efficiency, in the context of a particular learning requirement, audience characteristics, and practical constraints and opportunities.
Clive’s does a great job in separating the method and the medium. I quite agree with Clive.
In my view, blended learning can be simply defined as a combination (blend!) of self learning (asynchronous) and teaching (synchronous). Self learning could happen in form of going through predefined learning path, using various media for content (books, whitepapers, wikis, blogs etc.). Teaching could happen in classroom, web conference, virtual classroom etc. Like Clive says, it is the method and not the medium.
I am going to help my 11 year old daughter create her first email ID. I am looking for options available. Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo are of course obvious choices, but is there an email service specifically for kids? My natural parental instinct worries me about my children getting on the Net unmonitored. At the same time I wonder given the muck they watch on TV and read in the newspapers, does it really matter that they are on the Net unmonitored? Yet to play safe, I am looking for kids email option without getting them on to the regular email services. Any suggestions?
Learning Circuit’s January Big Question is about predicting trends for the year 2008. Here’s my take on what we can expect in the coming year.
Web 2.0 in Learning
Web 2.0 will be the killer buzzword for the year 2008. Everyone will want to use the technology for learning and training. Bersin report for 2008 talks about it, Brandon Hall has announced new categories of awards, and most bloggers are talking about it. I believe 2008 will continue to be the year of discovery and experimentation with Web 2.0. Web 2.0 techniques will not yet be used in formal training, but each company will have an initiative around it.
In my view, corporate intranets and extranets have been around for years and have been attempting to do what Web 2.0 is expected to do. Are Web 2.0 techniques different from corporate intranets? Will employees feel more compelled to use these as compared to corporate intranets? Will companies provide the Internet freedom culture on their corporate Web 2.0 environments? Will companies adopt open sites like Facebook, YouTube, SlideShare for allowing employees to post and share corporate content on the Internet? Or will these sites provide secure environments (inside firewalls or hosted) to the corporate world? Do we have a new business model here? Or will Web 2.0’s usage be limited to building communities by product companies?
Training managers will still be required to measure success in training days/hours per person, which will make Web 2.0 in formal training and learning environment extremely difficult to adapt for formal training. What is required is another path breaking research that can provide some return on investment figures of using Web 2.0 in learning and training. I expect more research towards this in year 2008 rather than training managers embracing Web 2.0 as a mode of formal learning.
Virtual Environments
Virtual environments will find increasing use in building communities and new product launches by technology customers. Will Second Life be used for actual training in the corporate world? I don’t believe 2008 will be the year for mass adoption of Second Life in training. There will be questions of security, access through corporate networks, and of course tracking progress in Second Life. However asynchronous virtual environments will find their way in training in a limited way. Most of these will be showcase training module as opposed to bulk of training being developed as virtual environment. There will be a conflict between rapid development and real-life imitating virtual environment training. I am also very impressed with
The 3Di-Web Singularity is Near by
Tony O’Driscoll. This will certainly change the way learning happens. I am not sure about its adoption in formal “training” in the next year or two.
Form FactorsThe 2000-01 downturn saw a trend towards formalizing elearning as a mode of learning. There were mechanisms to justify the return on investment on elearning. As the economy improved, we moved to blended learning. Even as elearning increased, most industry reports still indicated that instructor led training led as the preferred mode of learning. In the last few years, we as a training and content development organization have seen an increase in projects developing instructor led training material. Now with the US economy showing signs of slowing down (no one actually conclusively knows which way the US economy will actually go but most reports are tilting towards “caution”, “slowing down”, “start of recession” etc.), my guess is that we will once again see an increase of elearning development.
What constitutes elearning has also changed. Most instructor led training now a days has an element of ‘e’ in them, whether it is in the form of demos or virtual images. In 2008, we should start to dump the ‘e’ and start classifying training as synchronous training and asynchronous training.
The training in 2008 will tend towards online synchronous training. We will see more of “VILT”, “online sessions”, “online conferencing” etc. The technology now has matured; online conferencing tools are easily available without significant investment option to be made by organizations.
Rapid Development and Development Models
Rapid elearning will continue to be a buzz word. PowerPoint will reclaim its position as a rapid elearning development tool. Sites like
SlideShare will help PowerPoint in this endeavor.
Of course, being the buzzword, along with “collaborative development”, “self organizing groups”, “user generated content”, training managers will have harder time convincing management to spend training dollars in an already weakening economy. Most management will want to know what value instructional designers add when all content is driven by subject matter experts in user generated content mode. Instructional Designers will be required to acquire new skills for content development and interacting with SME and reinvent themselves. The development models will change to factor in collaborative development and rapid development needs.
Summary
In summary, we will see a lot more talk about Web 2.0 in learning and training. However 2008 may not be the year of adoption of Web 2.0 technologies in "formal training". Rapid development will be key and instructional designers will need to reinvent themselves and development models will evolve.
Would love to hear what you are seeing as trends within your companies or you’re your customers are implementing. Share your practical experiences.
